The Vietnamese government is turning to a “detoxification” method developed by the founder of the Church of Scientology to treat victims of Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant the U.S. military used during the Vietnam War.

According to local media reports, 24 patients from the central city of Da Nang were admitted to the Hanoi 103 Military Hospital last week to begin a free, month-long treatment to rid the body of dioxins that have been linked to birth defects, cancers and other diseases.

Vietnam is the first country to apply the method on Agent Orange victims, according to Hoang Manh An, the director of the hospital carrying out the detoxification.

[…]Christopher Hodges at the American Embassy in Hanoi said the U.S. had not provided any funding for detoxification programs in Vietnam.

“We are not aware of any safe, effective detoxification treatment for people with dioxin in body tissues,” Hodges said in a statement. “The best way to reduce health risks associated with dioxin is to prevent human exposure to dioxin, and the best way to do that is to clean up areas where dioxin exists in the environment at potentially hazardous levels.”

Tip: r/skeptic

What is the treatment? The “Hubbard Method,” means taking vitamins and minerals, exercising and sweating in saunas.

How will they measure the results? How does this treatment even work? It doesn’t work and I strongly suspect they WON’T measure it. Scientology and their pseudoscientific detox treatments are not only unscientific and ineffective but their drug detox program, Narconon is now under scrutiny. This is a false hope to people whose lives were ruined 40 some years ago.

It looks like this series of articles was sparked by a friend of mine! He had heard about this Hubbard Method and has a particular interest in Vietnam, so he looked into it and found the link to Scientology. He wrote to a journalist at the NY Times who had covered this previously, and the journalist said he’d investigate. Voila! The Times comes out with an article and then others follow!